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Though speculation has targeted China Mobile's network exclusive TD-SCDMA technology as the problem, the company's president says that's not the case.

As reported by Unwired View, China Mobile President Li Yue today said that incompatible network standards are not the only reason why the iPhone 5 has yet to appear on the carrier.

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Speaking at 2012 China Mobile Worldwide Developer Conference, when asked about availability of iPhone, he told the audience that "technology is not a problem, [it's] mainly about business model and benefit-sharing issues".

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In May, it was confirmed that China Mobile had been in negotiations with Apple about acquiring the iPhone 5, but thus far those talks have failed to produce results, and today's comment may hint at the reason. It appears that the two companies may be hindered by disagreements over revenue sharing and carrier subsidies rather than technological difficulties.

China Mobile is China's biggest cell phone carrier, with 703 million subscribers. More than 15 million of those subscribers currently use gray market iPhones on the network, which China Mobile supports.

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With China Mobile's 703 million subscribers, an agreement between CM and APPLE would be hugely beneficial to both companies. Enough to make you wonder, who of the two, is in a bigger hurry to make this a 'done deal'.

macrumors regular

They were a Nokia monopoly for smartphones, supported development of MeeGo, and in return, they shared the revenue from Nokia's handset sales and from its Chinese app marketplace.

Nokia screwed all that up when they went with Windows Phone, abandoned MeeGo and dropped support for their app marketplace - the biggest in China at the time. It was insanity.

Since then, China Mobile has thrown the doors open, eager to recreate the situation that had been so beneficial to both themselves and Nokia. They played vendors off against each other for a new exclusive deal, but Nokia won... because they were desperate and were willing to make any concessions necessary.

The Lumia 920T is now China Mobile's flagship phone - not the iPhone. Depending on how it goes down with consumers, Nokia may regain their China Mobile monopoly, or the carrier might become open to offering multiple "flagship" smartphones.

macrumors regular

703 million subscribers, out of which 690 million are people with a living standard that would be described as "poverty" in American standard, in a country with a GDP per capita of just 4000 US annual.

With no social security, no free education or health care, people in this country has little disposable income to spend.

Lots of American companies fall for this "largest consumer market" trap and end up losing their money and technology to the Chinese government.

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